Moneymakers: Mark Bent, SunNight Solar founder

Five questions with Mark BentInnovation shines light on Third World problem

LYNN COOK, Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Published 6:30 am, Friday, December 14, 2007

Photo: JOHNNY HANSON, FOR THE CHRONICLE

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"If you've never been to a refugee camp, well, it will break your heart. Just having a light on you can help a bad situation. I see this as a calling, really. I saw I could leverage all these contacts I had in the State Department and in the world of energy, and I think God's put me right where I need to be." less

"If you've never been to a refugee camp, well, it will break your heart. Just having a light on you can help a bad situation. I see this as a calling, really. I saw I could leverage all these contacts I had in ... more

Photo: JOHNNY HANSON, FOR THE CHRONICLE

Moneymakers: Mark Bent, SunNight Solar founder

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An estimated 2 billion people in the world live off the grid. With no electricity, light is hard to come by once the sun goes down.

Candles are weak. Kerosene is pricey. Conventional flashlights drain batteries in as little as 15 hours in harsh environments. That trifecta of "lousy options" spurred Mark Bent, a former Marine, diplomat and energy executive, to start SunNight Solar, a Houston company trying to build a better solar-powered flashlight.

His high-beam torches charge by day in the sun and can put off seven or eight hours of light at night. The rechargeable solar-powered batteries work for three years before they need to be replaced.

"They work well no matter where in the world you are," he says.

Bent's efforts have drawn praise from the United Nations.

Bent recently spoke with reporter Lynn Cook about how a fairly simple gadget most Americans take for granted can change a life in the Third World.

Q: Why did you decide to do this?

A: I spent a combined 14 years in Africa — Eritrea, Somalia, all over, really — in the Foreign Service and in the energy industry. When you drive through the capital city in a place like Nigeria after dark, you see all these young people standing under the streetlights reading, just reading, trying to study and do their homework because at home they have no light to read by.

There were no good options. The World Bank estimates people in Africa spend up to 30 percent of their salaries on kerosene for cooking and for lighting. It's a huge expense.

In the military we'd say there's a force multiplier at work here. These lights are environmentally sound, they're affordable — even for people in Africa — and they provide a way for people to get a much-needed resource. They are helping kids get an education, they are helping women cook and perform tasks they normally have to fumble around in the dark to do, and they're making people safer.

If you've never been to a refugee camp, well, it will break your heart. Just having a light on you can help a bad situation. I see this as a calling, really. I saw I could leverage all these contacts I had in the State Department and in the world of energy, and I think God's put me right where I need to be.

Q: Do you think most Americans can even imagine life off the grid — no power, no lights?

A: No. Not at all. Even when I was living in Africa, I was on a compound much of the time, and I'd forget because I had the creature comforts of home.

A: It's becoming really popular. A lot of people want to help, want to donate, but they don't know what to do. They don't want to give money and not know exactly where it's going or worry about how much overhead an organization has.

We're a for-profit company, but we hardly have any administrative expenses. This program is simple. You buy one flashlight for $25, and we ship one to you and another one to Africa.

Corporations are doing it, too. Exxon Mobil has purchased thousands of our flashlights — we put their logo on them — and gave them out in Angola. We're looking at doing more with them.

It's a no-brainer, really.

Companies need to help the population living right there where they do business. But you can't have the general manager's time being completely taken up with charity work, handing out books and things of that nature. When you give money to the government to build a school, it's routinely looted, so you have to be vigilant about corruption. Even if a school gets built, it will be in the capital and, again, not benefit the community you're in.

So this is a nice one. You can hand somebody a light, say "this is yours," and see it working immediately.

Q: Lots of energy industry types are skeptical of solar. What do you say to them?

A: Well, for power generation, I agree. It's not economical. But these lights are.

Plus, disposable batteries are so wasteful and harmful to the environment. When you think of all the nickel and cadmium resources used to make them, only to get tossed or seep into groundwater, it's a horrible waste.

Q: What else are you working on?

A: Improving this light. LEDs are getting better all the time and less expensive.

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We're working on a way to air-cool batteries so they won't lose efficiency in the heat. We're instituting another program that will focus on getting these lights to women. And we're working on a light that's more dual-purpose, with one switch for concentrated light and another for dispersed light to use to light up a room.